[NEWS] Red Rocket's @georgedeeb Hosts Startup Pitch Competition at Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago (June 3rd)--10% Off Tickets

I have been invited to participate again in this year's Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago on June 2-5 at McCormick Place.  I will be hosting a startup pitch competition between three leading Chicago e-commerce startups:  Blitsy, MightyNest and MoxieJean.  The session will be held on June 3rd at 4pm.  You can learn more at this link.

If interested in attended the biggest internet retail event of the year, as event participants, we are pleased to offer all Red Rocket readers a 10% discount on your entry ticket price.  When you go to register, be sure to enter the discount code SPEAKER10 to receive your discount.

It will be fun to see our three FireStarter Fund portfolio companies duke it out for Best E-Commerce Startup (at least in Chicago).  Hope to see you there.

For future posts, please follow us on Twitter at: @RedRocketVC.

Six Drivers That Determine Your Revenue Model

One of the first questions a potential investor is going to ask you is, “how do you plan to make money?”. It is critical you have a well-thought plan for the long term, even if revenues will be minimal in the short term. Revenue models can vary based on: (i) your industry; (ii) your product or service within that industry; and (iii) what your direct competitors are doing. And most importantly, you need to assess whether your revenue plan passes the sanity check for your business and prospective investors.

Read the rest of this post in The Next Web, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Which Selling Technique Will Best Benefit Your Business?

Not all products or services are created equal in terms of the strategy you use to sell them. And, not all customers are created equal, in terms of how sophisticated they are about your product line and how much they may need your product or service. What's more, selling into different levels of an organization often requires different types of selling techniques, in order to get customers' attention. Below, I've summarized the three most typical selling techniques used today.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #204: Startup Accelerators by Industry

It has been interesting to watch the original "generalist" startup incubators and accelerator programs evolve into ones focused on various niche industry verticals.  Which to me, makes a ton more sense. Here is a list of some of the industry focused startup accelerators and incubators that I have learned about.

BIO TECH

University Technology Park (Chicago)

CLEAN TECH

Elemental Excelerator (Honolulu) - Corporate backed by Emerson Collective
Enel Citris Foundry (Berkeley) - Corporate backed by Enel
Green Lite Labs (Boulder)
Greentown Labs (Boston) - Corporate backed by Saint-Gobain
LACI (Los Angeles) -  City backed by Los Angeles
Shell Foundation Incubator (London) - Corporate backed by Shell
Urban-X (New York) - Corporate backed by Mini

CONSUMER PRODUCTS

Incubation Station (Austin)

EDUCATION

AT&T Aspire (San Francisco) -  Corporate backed by AT&T
Catalyst (Virtual) - Corporate backed by Pearson
DVX Labs (Chicago)-- Corporate backed by DeVry
Kaplan Ed Tech Accelerator (New York) - Part of Techstars (corporate backed by Kaplan)
Imagine K12 (Palo Alto)
Start 1 (New York)

ENERGY

Enviromental Cluster (San Jose)
Green Start (San Francisco)
NYC ACRE (New York)
Surge Accelerator (Houston)

ENTERPRISE/ BIG DATA

Accelerprise (Washington DC)
Citrix Startup Accelerator (Santa Clara) - Corporate backed by Citrix
Hive Data (Palo Alto)
Microsoft Accelerator (Seattle)
Tech Wildcatters (Dallas)
Techstars Cloud (San Antonio)

FINANCE

Barclays Accelerator (New York) - Part of Techstars (corporate backed by Barclays)
Citi Accelerator (Tel Aviv) -  Corporate backed by Citi
FinTech Innovation Lab (New York)
Innotribe (New York)
Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator (San Francisco) - Corporate backed by Wells Fargo

FOOD/ AGRICULTURE

Accel Foods (New York)
Budweiser Dream Brewery (Shanghai) - Corporate backed by Budweiser
Canvas (Baltimore, Phoenix & Irvine) - Corporate backed by Marriott
Chobani Food Incubator (New York) - Corporate backed by Chobani
Cleveland Avenue (Chicago)
Coca-Cola Founders (San Francisco) - Corporate backed by Coca-Cola
Craft Catalyst (Atlanta)
Farm 2050 (Palo Alto)
Food Centricity (Los Angeles)
Food Hatch (Naples)
Food Innovation (New Jersey) - Affiliated with Rutgers University
Food-X (New York)
Forge Food (Portland)
Fund The Food (Toronto)
Good Food (Chicago)
NOFFN (New Orleans)
Royse Law Incubator (Palo Alto)
Terra (San Francisco) - Corporate backed by Nestle and others
The Yield Lab (St. Louis)
World Food Center (Sacramento) - Affiliated with U-C Davis (corporate backed by Mars)

GOVERNMENT

Code for America (San Francisco)

HARDWARE

Alpha Lab (Pittsburgh)
Bolt (Boston)
Catalyze (Chicago)
Haxlr8r (San Francisco)
Highway 1 (San Francisco)
Lennos Labs (San Francisco)

HEALTHCARE

BD BioVenture Center (Raleigh-Durham)
Blueprint Health (New York)
Boom Town Health Tech Accelerator (Boulder)
Cedars-Sinai Accelerator (Lost Angeles) - Powered by Techstars (corporated backed by Cedars)
Central New York Biotech Accelerator (Syracuse)
CIMIT (Boston)
Dream It Ventures (Philadelphia)
43North (Buffalo)
Health Wildcatters (Dallas)
Healthbox (Chicago & Boston) - Corporate backed by Blue Cross Blue Shield
HealthXL (Boston)
Infield Medical (Raleigh-Durham)
Insight Accelerator Labs (Chicago)
JLABS (New York, San Diego & Toronto) - Corporate backed by Johnson & Johnson
Mass Challenge (Boston)
Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (Boston)
Matter (Chicago)
Medtech Innovator (Los Angeles)
New York Digital Health Accelerator (New York)
Penn Medicine Center for Healthcare Innovation (Philadelphia) -  University backed by Penn.
Rock Health (San Francisco)
Startup Moonshot Health Academy (New York)
Technogym Wellness (Venice) - Corporate backed by Technogym
Techstars Healthcare (Los Angeles) - Corporate backed by Cedars-Sinai
The Iron Yard (Asheville)
Startup Health (New York)
StartX Med (Palo Alto, CA) - University backed by Stanford

MEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT/NEWS

Disney Accelerator (Los Angeles) - Part of Techstars (corporate backed by Disney)
Matter (San Francisco)
Media Camp (San Francisco/Los Angeles) - Corporate backed by Turner/Warner Bros.
News Challenge (Miami)
Telenet Kickstart (Belgium) - Corporate backed by Telenet
Virgin Media Accelerator (London) - Powered by Techstars (corporate backed by Virgin)
YLE Media Accelerator (Helsinki) - Corporate backed by YLE Media

MOBILITY/AUTOMOTIVE

Samsung Accelerator (Palo Alto & New York) - Corporate backed by Samsung
Sprint Accelerator (Kansas City, MO) - Focused on mobile health (corporate backed by Sprint)
Techstars Mobility (Detroit) - Corporate backed by Ford, Magna & Verizon
Volkswagen ERL Tech Accelerator (San Jose) - Corporate backed by Volkswagen

REAL ESTATE

NAR Reach (Chicago) - Corporate backed by National Association of Realtors

RETAIL

JLAB (London) - Corporate backed by John Lewis
Plug and Play Retail (San Jose) - Affiliated with Clorox, Hershey, Hilton, Home Depot, J&J, Kohls, P&G, Panasonic, Pizza Hut, Sears, and Simon Malls.
Store No. 8 (Silicon Valley) -  Corporate backed by Walmart
Techstars Retail (Minneapolis) - Corporate backed by Target.

ROBOTICS

Qualcomm Accelerator (San Diego) - Corporate backed by Qualcomm

SOCIAL GOOD

Endeavor (Miami)
Fledge (Seattle)
Impact Engine (Chicago)
Techstars Impact Accelerator (Austin)
Unreasonable Institute (Boulder)

SPORTS

Nike+ Fuel Lab (Portland) - Part of Techstars (corporate backed by Nike)

TECHNOLOGY/ INTERNET OF THINGS

Chicago Connectory (Chicago)
Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence (Silicon Valley) - Corporate backed by Cisco
Google Accelerator Launchpad (Mountain View) -  Corporate backed by Google
IBM Alpha Zone (Tel Aviv) - Corporate backed by IBM
NC RIoT (Raleigh)
R/GA Accelerator (New York) -  Part of Techstars (corporate backed by R/GA)
Sprint Accelerator (Kansas City, MO) - Corporate backed by Sprint
Techstars IoT (New York)

TRAVEL

Travel Startups (Orlando)

I am sure there may be many others that I missed.  So, let me know if I have missed any important ones.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb

Download @RedRocketVC's Three Free eBooks--Over 303 Startup Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Here are the links to download Red Rocket's free eBooks from your favorite eBookstores.  Now it is easy to download our entire collection of startup lessons to your e-readers, if easier than reading these same lessons on our website.

101 STARTUP LESSONS

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD:

Amazon (Kindle) - $0.99

Barnes & Noble (Nook)- Free

Blog Into Book - Free

Google Play - Free

iTunes - Free

Kobo - Free

STARTUP LESSONS #102 - #202

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD:

Amazon (Kindle) - $0.99

Barnes & Noble (Nook)- Free

Blog Into Book - Free

Google Play - Free

iTunes - Free

Kobo - Free

STARTUP LESSONS #203 - #303

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD:

Amazon (Kindle) - $0.99

Barnes & Noble (Nook)- Free
Blog Into Book - Free

Google Play - Free

iTunes - Free

Kobo - Free

[NEWS] Red Rocket's "Startup Lessons #102 - #202" -- Now a Downloadable eBook from @RedRocketVC

Red Rocket started writing its "101 Startup Lessons--An Entrepreneur's Handbook" back in March 2011.  Over four years later, it has grown to over 202 startup lessons for entrepreneurs.  It is a comprehensive, one-stop read for entrepreneurs who want actionable learnings about a wide range of startup and digital-related topics. The book is a startup executive's strategic "playbook", with "how-to" lessons about business in general, sales, marketing, technology, operations, human resources, finance, fund raising and more, including many case studies therein. We have demystified and synthesized the information an entrepreneur needs to strategize, fund, develop, launch and market their businesses.

We published our first "101 Startup Lessons" in November 2013.  And, today, are excited to announce the publishing of our second book, "Startup Lessons #102-#202" in April 2015.

Thanks to all of our 400,000+ readers who have already benefitted from these lessons via our blog, which we will continue to update with new lessons in the years to come.

To download the full eBook into your eBook readers, visit your favorite eBookstore website:

Amazon (Kindle) - $0.99
Barnes & Noble (Nook)- $0.99
Blog Into Book - Free
Google Play - Free
iTunes - Free
Kobo - Free

If you wish to download our first "101 Startup Lessons" eBook, you can find the links to your favorite eBookstore at this link.

Thanks for sharing this editorial adventure with us.  We appreciate your readership, and your sharing these lessons with your entrepreneurial colleagues in need.

For future lessons, be sure to check back weekly on the Red Rocket Blog, or follow us on Twitter at: @RedRocketVC or @georgedeeb.